Despite Reeves-led rally, Gators fall in OT on last-second 3 by A&M

The Gators men’s basketball team was eliminated in the second round of the SEC Tournament Thursday with an 83-80 overtime loss to the Texas A&M Aggies.

With both teams fighting for a spot in the NCAA Tournament, Florida (19-13) fell to A&M (21-11) in heartbreaking fashion for the second time this season.

The Aggies were the better team for most of the game and built 16-point leads in both the first and second half, never trailing in either period. 

“I thought our guys showed incredible resiliency, as they have all season, to put ourselves in a position a couple of different times to steal it after being down big,” UF coach Mike White said.

The Gators didn’t take their first lead until overtime when guard Kowacie Reeves hit a layup and converted the and-1 to give his team a 73-70 lead. 

Reeves scored a career-high 21 points, including 7 in the final 40 seconds of regulation on a pair of 3-pointers, one of which became a 4-point play. All 21 of Reeves’ points came after halftime.

“He puts the most work in probably out of anybody on the team. Comes in with the right attitude every day. Something I’ve never seen from somebody so young,” Florida’s Colin Castleton said of Reeves. “It’s awesome to see him hits those shots because that’s what he is capable of. … He is going to be a really good player when it’s all said and done.”

UF took all of the momentum late in the second half and early in overtime, but Texas A&M tied the game at 80 and then won it on Hassan Diarra’s go-ahead triple with 0.4 seconds left. 

The Gators will now wait for Selection Sunday to see whether they will be headed to the NCAA Tournament, but most projections had them on the outside looking in before Thursday’s loss.

Numbers, trends from Gators’ loss

Looking at the individual statistics, it wasn’t a typical box score for Florida in terms of scoring output. 

UF starting point guard Tyree Appleby finished with zero points, which is very uncharacteristic of him. Appleby, Myreon Jones and Brandon McKissic went a combined 0-for-10 from downtown, where the Gators shot poorly overall as a team (5-24, 20.8 percent).

“Just wasn’t his day,” White said of Appleby. “He is as down as anybody. Just struggled to get it going. Credit A&M’s defense.”

Two of Florida’s top scorers came off the bench in Reeves and Niels Lane, who posted career highs in points (16) and rebounds (nine). UF’s backups outscored its starters 44-36.

“Niels Lane stepped up. Kowacie stepped up,” White said. “Just didn’t do enough. Just didn’t do enough.”

Lane’s first three field goals all came off offensive rebounds, including an old fashioned 3-point play, and he added his first career 3-pointer to post 10 points and five rebounds before the half.

“The fact that the ball was going in the basket for me in the first half definitely gave me a boost of confidence on the offensive end and the defensive end, because it’s just natural,” Lane said. “If you are getting it done it the offensive end, then you’re going to have more energy on the defensive end. So, me having a good game offensively today definitely helped me on both sides.”

Gators guard Phlandrous Fleming Jr. got hot late alongside Reeves and added 17 points, including 14 after halftime and 5 in overtime. However, Fleming also committed six costly turnovers and was called for a late foul on A&M’s Tyrece Radford, sending him to the line for two game-tying free throws that set up Diarra’s game-winner. 

Although injured and battling illness, Castleton overcame a sluggish start to finish with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists. The Gators won the rebounding battle 39-34, including 15 offensive boards. 

What killed them was 18 turnovers, their second most in a game this season, and another poor 3-point shooting performance. They were 2-for-18 from beyond the arc until a trio of treys from Reeves and Fleming in the final minute of the second half to force overtime.

“A two-hour microcosm of the season,” White said of the loss. “Ups, downs, a lack of execution for a couple of minutes, an incredible fight for eight minutes, a really productive timeout, a span where we would lose a little bit of focus or lose control of our emotions a little bit and start pouting about a certain call or what have you, and then leave everything we’ve got on the floor and come up just a little bit short.

“But we’ve had four or five where we got the other ending and we came out on the right side. Unfortunately, we’ve come out on the wrong side too many times.”